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“Music comes down to passion,” says P.O.D. frontman Sonny Sandoval. “There are not a lot of bands out there today who have that. But I think that feeling is coming back around again.”
P.O.D. (Payable on Death) certainly has the right to talk about passion in music. Passion has been front and center since the band formed in 1992 in San Diego, CA, and all the way up to the release of their eighth and latest record, Murdered Love. Over the last two decades, the group has sold over 10 million albums (including 2001’s triple platinum record Satellite), garnered four No. 1 music videos, three Grammy nominations and over a dozen rock radio hits, including “Southtown,” “Alive,” “Youth of the Nation” and “Goodbye For Now.” Music trends have come and gone, but P.O.D.’s fanbase has seemingly only grown stronger.
Still, after the release of 2008’s When Angels & Serpents Dance, the band took a lengthy hiatus. “You can blame me,” says Sandoval. “The record business was changing, and we all wanted to get back to our personal lives and families. When we do P.O.D., we want to enjoy what we’re doing, and not to do it to pay the bills or tour just to tour.” Fortunately, the time off served the band, and Sandoval, well. “Yeah, I got in a good place again. P.O.D. means so much to us and our fans – there’s a lot of love for what we do. I wanted to keep inspiring and encouraging people.”
The band initially reconvened with a few jam sessions and the intent to put out a hardcore, Bad Brains-style EP and tour a little bit. But the initial recordings were strong enough to convince the group to tackle a new album. “By taking a break, we kind of got back on the same page,” says guitarist Marcos Curiel. “Now, everyone has the same attitude going forward, the same feeling we had when we did those first two first two big albums The Fundamental Elements of Southtown and Satellite.”
The most startling aspect of Murdered Love lies in its diversity and the band’s songwriting having penned every track on the album. The opener “Eyez” might be the band’s heaviest song yet, with a cameo by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta. It contrasts sharply with “West Coast Rock Steady,” a playful hip-hop ode to their San Diego roots featuring Sen Dog of Cypress Hill. Meanwhile, “Panic & Run” is full-tilt punk, “Bad Boy” brings a funky swagger and first single “Lost in Forever” ties it all together with an equal mix of aggressiveness and melody.
“The band is a fusion of all our musical passions,” says Curiel. “We can jump from punk to reggae to rap to metal. And funk -- people forget we had a little funk on our first few indie releases. So on a few songs here, we took it back. The whole process was really organic.”
Lyrically, the record finds P.O.D. at its most thoughtful and introspective as the band contemplates their lives and the world around them. On “Lost in Forever” Sandoval shows a mixture of hope and unease to questioning the cruelty of man, as the band also does in the brutal title track “Murdered Love.” “It’s about people who have died when all they brought was love” explains Curiel. The sparse, catchy “Beautiful,” contemplates the afterlife while the teeth-rattling album closer “I Am,” finds Sandoval opening with the vivid line: “I am the murderer, the pervert, sick to the core” and never lets up. It’s the band at its darkest and most confrontational.
“I had been doing a lot of outreach to kids, talking at a lot of schools,” says the singer. “I see what they go through – suicide, rape, addiction –and that song is just about being vulnerable and honest. They’re wondering if they’re screw-ups, if they’re deserving of love and compassion. “
The band recorded Murdered Love with Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson (Kelly Clarkson, My Chemical Romance, Daughtry), a long-time friend of the group and the man behind three of its biggest records. “He’s family,” says Sandoval, then laughs. “He has the power to choose who he wants to work with, and I think he wanted to go back and make a real rock record.”
To promote the record, the band has already set up a late spring/early summer headlining tour, as well as hitting a number of festivals and larger shows this year. “It seems like there’s Warriors in every city,” says Curiel, noting the band’s affectionate nickname for their diehard fans. “They’re loyal. And it’s great, because we’ll see people who loved us around the Satellite era bringing their kids.” Given the closeness between the band and their fanbase, it’s no surprise that P.O.D.’s new logo was the result of an online contest with their fans.
In the end, Murdered Love showcases a band at its most energetic and vital, nearly two decades after its debut. Sandoval agrees.
“This is the best record we’ve ever done,” says the singer. “And that can only come from what we’ve put into this. We’re the same four down-to-earth guys we were when we were putting out indie records. There’s an honesty and an underdog vibe to everything we do that you can definitely hear in our music.”

Lit are about to release their fifth studio album, The View From The Bottom on Megaforce Records, so it's natural to ask yourself, "Where has the band been?" But the answer to that question is particularly complicated, rife with stories and situations of triumph over tribulation. The answer is all in the new record's title.

No, it has nothing to do with Lit having slid off the face of the earth (and the charts) over the past eight or so years. In fact, through a number of heartbreaking challenges, the Fullerton, CA rock band, comprised of bros, singer A. Jay Popoff, guitarist/singer Jeremy Popoff, and lifelong friends, bassist/singer Kevin Baldes and drummer Allen Shellenberger, would remain active. Even vital.

As if it needs to be said, the group, had seen significant success with their second album A Place in the Sun (1999) which spawned 3 uber hit singles: "Miserable," which went to #3 on the Modern Rock Tracks, and whose video featured the flaxen voluptitude of Pamela Anderson; "Zip-Lock," and "My Own Worst Enemy" (which held the number one position on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart for three months, and received a Billboard Music Award for the biggest modern rock song of 1999). The song has actually sold over 650,000 downloads to date, which is no small feat considering that it was released before the advent of that technology.

Most of Lit's salad days were spent on the road. They rocked Woodstock 1999 and supported the Offspring, No Doubt and Garbage, spanning the globe and clocking in close to 500 shows between 1999 and 2000 (They were also seen all over television on MTV Spring Break, Cribs, TRL, Leno, Conan and more). And riding on its heels, A Place In The Sun's 2001 follow-up Atomic boasted yet another Top Ten single for the band, "Lipstick And Bruises," and a support tour with Kid Rock. After a very short breather, Lit would again, hit the road in 2003, this time, with a more intimate club tour to support the release of their fourth, self-titled LP, released in 2004, post a bold move to an indie label. A long-form live performance DVD release, All Access would follow later that year, and concurrently, Jeremy would give the band's hometown of Fullerton, CA a new watering hole, the Slidebar, which fast became a top Orange County hang.

Then, in a tragic turnabout of fortune, A. Jay and Jeremy's stepfather was killed and their mother seriously injured when they were involved in a motorcycle accident with a drunk driver on the Ortega Highway near their home in Lake Elsinore. The tragedy would make it extremely difficult for the band to weather the work but despite it all, they would continue to write and play shows. In July of 2008, the band had been called to support Kiss on a European tour but just days before the first date, misfortune befell the group again when Shellenberger was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Just over a year later, the illness would take his life.

Spirits left in ruins, still A. Jay, Jeremy and Kevin found the wherewithal to make the music. Initially, the group still felt unable to pen songs for a new disc. Slowly, without forcing it, the group began writing. "It took those traumatic things to slowly start pulling us back together as a unit," says A. Jay.

With the help of a new drummer/old friend, in fact Shellenberger's drum tech, Nathan Walker and guitarist/keyboardist Ryan Gillmor, Lit suddenly found themselves with a pile of new material. The inspiration had struck and during various writing sessions throughout 2010 and 2011 The group began to construct their first new tracks in many years. "We're ready as a band to get out there again," A. Jay says. "We have the right guys now and our band is more focused than it's ever been, maybe because we've learned so much in the process."

The group headed into the studio in late 2011 with Butch Walker, who had recently helmed records by Panic! At The Disco, Avril Lavigne and Weezer, (along writing credits on countless hits), armed with a selection of these new songs and, for the first time ever, demos. Whereas in the past Lit had written just enough tracks for an album, on this album the band was prepared with way more tracks than appear on The View From The Bottom. The majority of the disc was tracked live on two-inch tape in order to capture a "very organic and real" feeling in the recordings. The process felt natural, like the time to make a follow-up to Lit was finally the right time.

"We were thrilled and excited to be able to finally make a record with Butch," Jeremy says of the recording process. "It was such a blast. It was a very fast, organic process- completely drama free. It was all about fun and making the best music we could make. Just really enjoying the process, which we now have the luxury of doing. It was just the way it should be making a record."

The resulting album is impassioned and alive, a collection of solidly catchy rock songs that reverberate with inspiration.

Mixed by Joe Zook (Katy Perry, The Hives, One Republic, Pink) The View From The Bottom tangibly tells the story of Lit's in between days. The tracks, which veer from upbeat rocker to pensive ballad, narrate the story of the musicians' experiences over the past ten years, encompassing both their individual and collective histories. Allen's death is threaded throughout the album, coloring the songwriting on tracks like "The Wall," a number based around a photograph of the band taken at his last show. "The picture's in my living room," Jeremy notes. "We took the picture off the wall and took it into the yard when we were writing and the lyric is 'There's more behind that picture than the wall.' It represents an important growth as songwriters. I'm really proud of that one."

Other standout tracks include, "The Broken" and most poignantly, "Here's To Us," but the new record is not without its lighter, Big Rock Moments- reference the absolutely monolithic kick-starter, "C'mon" and the equally tremendous "You Tonight," co-written by Marti Frederiksen whose collabs include Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger, and Carrie Underwood among others, not to mention the glam stomper, "Same Shit, Different Drink," (co-written with Walker).

Ultimately, The View From the Bottom is inherently a Lit album, driven by propulsive tracks intended to make the listener let go and have a good time. It reflects two sides of the same spectrum, offering a balanced, diverse listening experience that finds cohesiveness in both its tone and songwriting prowess.

"Part of us wanted to touch on the stuff that we'd been through and there was another part of us that just wanted to get back to the idea of having fun and being excited to play live," Jeremy says of that dichotomy. "I think there was also an element of wanting to make music we felt like was missing from the radio right now. Which is exactly how we felt 12 years ago when we were writing A Place In the Sun."

Now, as the band heads back on the road, Lit is prepared to both re-excite their longtime fans and win over new ones. With a recent record label deal with Megaforce, a company that Lit felt connected to in terms of their goals and musical philosophies, the band hopes listeners will see the past ten years as a success story. In the end, the band is just a group of guys who saw some triumphs and along with those achievements came some tragedies. But they stuck together and have come out on the other side swinging, new music in hand.

Look for a headlining tour of the southeast in April and May and, the band will join the Summerland Tour (along with Sugar Ray, The Gin Blossoms, Everclear and Marcy Playground) in late June through August.

Since the formation of Alien Ant Farm in 1995, the quartet has enjoyed worldwide success. Over the course of their four studio albums, cumulative sales surpass five million units a Grammy nomination and 4 top 10 singles. The band built a massive following on the road early in their career via high profile 2001 runs with Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Warped, and as the headliner on an MTV presented Fall Tour. In 2002, fame spread across the world, bringing Alien Ant Farm to the major European festivals, Australia's Big Day Out and a headline run in Japan. The following year they returned to Europe with Metallica, and to this day the band has steadily delivered audiences in territories across the globe.

From the beginning, the clever humor of vocalist Dryden Mitchell and guitarist Terry Corso has delivered visual imagery that made the band vanguards in the realm of music video. All of the singles released received heavy rotation on MTV and MTV2, with "Smooth Criminal" was voted the #2 video of 2001 on MTV's countdown. They appeared on the channel's programs Celebrity Dismissed, MTV Cribbs, and hosted House of Style. Alongside the massive support from cable, Alien Ant Farm were darlings of broadcast television with multiple appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and support from Carson Daly, Extra, CNN, Access Hollywood and Mad-TV amongst many more. With all the notoriety also came a 2001 Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2001.

The early history of the band began when the name came from a daydream Terry Corso had while employed at a day job. The concept revolves around the human species being cultivated by alien intelligence, and the colony forming much like it does in a traditional children's toy. In 1999, Alien Ant Farm self-released their debut titled Greatest Hits, which went on to win Best Independent Album at the L.A. Music Awards. In 2000, they signed to DreamWorks SKG, and went on to release Anthology. The following year, a cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" became a massive hit overseas, rising to #1 in Australia and New Zealand, and on the U.S. Modern Rock charts. It also rose to #3 in the U.K. To set the record straight on the inspiration behind choosing this song amongst the millions of copyrights, Corso shares, "When we were a young local band in SoCal, we'd play a different cover song by a different artist every show we would do. Wild unexpected stuff and sometimes not even songs we were that into. Just whatever was going on around us on the radio or whatever fit in with our inside jokes at that minute, from Ileah to Gary Glitter to The Police, we had a lot of fun with it. One week we had been throwing the idea of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" around the jam room, I believe someone had just watched Moonwalker again. The very next show we played, we hadn't learned the whole song yet but decided to klunk the main riff out for fun, the crowd loved it and went a little crazy. After that we learned the entire song and super charged it. The rest is pretty much history." To this day, the cover is a crowd pleaser. This past October 8th, the band was asked to appear alongside Cee Lo Green, Smokey Robinson and The Jackson Family at the Michael Jackson Forever Tribute Concert in Cardiff, Wales.

In 2003, the Alien Ant Farm entered the studio with Stone Temple Pilots' Robert and Dean DeLeo and cut Truant. Unfortunately, they ran in to unforeseen adversity with the closure of their record label, offering an insurmountable obstacle to continue building on the band's successes. Still under contract to Universal, Geffen green-lit the opportunity for Alien Ant Farm to return to the studio. In 2005, they recorded with Jim Wirt, but that album was not released as scheduled. Alien Ant Farm chose to share it with with fans via a bootlegged version, which has affectionately been re-named 3rd Draft by the public. Looking back on the adversity the band went through, alongside the massive fame Mitchell reflects, "This Alien Ant Farm 'Wave' is a bigger, longer wave than I could have hoped for. All these years later, we are still intact. From friends to foes to friends again, this band is something special, and nothing short of tight and explosive."

The next year in 2006 Up In The Attic was issued, and for the next several years the members went their separate ways reconvening in 2009 for performances in Kansas City, the Sonisphere Festival in Knebworth, UK and at the WARPED Tour in memory of Michael Jackson. They were back, and come 2010 began to rebuild a legacy that grows with each passing month. The band staged a very successful tour over the Summer and Fall, where they road tested new material in front of the live audience. In the New Year, they'll release the new recordings. Mitchell shares, "The First batch of these new songs are pretty to the point and pissed. Angry, but not negative. That is possible in this non tangible, musical and lyrical world. Unfortunately not possible in the real world, and that's why I love music. I can get this all out without hurting anyone."

Come 2014 Alien Ant Farm are back, and the path for the future will unfold one day at a time. As their career approaches two decades, Dryden offers, “Its hard to believe we have been doing this as long as we have, I don’t think any of us thought when we started out that our career would go onto do what it has, or that we would face some of the hurdles and losses that we have but here we stand ready to give our fans and the world another piece of Alien Ant Farm, we honestly have the best fans in the business, not only have they stuck with us through all of the personal up’s and down’s but they have never given up on our music and how we create and deliver what we feel is real and pure. We are ready to head down this path again and could not be happier with our new partners at The End Records, there’s nothing like having a team of believers around you that support your visions.”

Picture being in a band and playing a cover of one of 3 Doors Down's hits to a sweaty and packed club of rowdy rock fans. Now picture being in that same band, but being in the studio eye-to-eye with 3 Door Down's guitarist producing an album of your original music. For Minneapolis, MN's modern rock band Strange Daze that fairy tale has come true—only it took a a little bit of time. On November 12th, Strange Daze releases, Shine Through (Rock Ridge Music), an anthemic album of modern rock forged in fiery emotional urgency.

Strange Daze has gigged extensively throughout Minnesota and the Midwest, averaging 100-plus shows a year. Coming up, the quartet did heavy lifting through covering a broad array of modern pop— everything from Prince to Tom Petty to 3 Doors Down to Pearl Jam—electrifying club goers with top-notch versions of their favorite tunes while slowly integrating original music. This savvy approach helped Strange Daze win over a devoted and diverse fan base, and it also boldly tested Strange Daze's songwriting prowess by placing the band's originals side-by-side with pop classics.

It's been a trial-by-fire that's yielded impressive results. Strange Daze sold out of its first two CDs, exceeding 10,000 in sales with no label support or formal distribution outlet. This show of support afforded the band the opportunity to concentrate on its own powerful and well-crafted songs. The band is now enjoying accolades and acclaim based on its distinct musicality. The quartet reached #9 on CMJ's Top 200, beating out superstar artists like No Doubt and OutKast. Additionally, Strange Daze has charted on 30-plus stations. The band has been played on more than 250 stations in nationwide.

Strange Daze is Eric Moudry (guitars/vocals/primary songwriter), Scott Knudson (vocals/co-lyricist), Chad Armstrong (bass/vocals), and Mike Berg (drums). The band's fateful career moment came when engineer/producer Brian Johnson—who helmed the sessions for the band's first two albums—passed along a CD to 38 Special keyboardist Bobby Capps. Impressed, Capps shared it with 3 Doors Down guitarist Chris Henderson, his partner in Nashville, TN-based Rivergate Studios. Capps immediately signed on to produce Strange Daze with Henderson's and Johnson's help.

The resulting record, Shine Through, is a powerful blend of soaring modern rock radio hooks with moving life story sincerity. "We want to touch people and connect with them," Moudry says. "Our songs are about real life—our ups and downs—we lay it all out there to share with our fans."

The standout "Beautiful" mixes sweet introspection with a transcendently uplifting chorus. Its message of unconditional love has made it a popular wedding song. Here, with vulnerable authority, vocalist Scott Knudson sings goose bump-inducing lines like: You make every day worthwhile/You're the air that keeps me breathing/ And I will stand by you...forever/Cuz' you're my everything.

The brawny "Satellite Soul" combines burly blues-rock riffs with lush, oceanic textures, building up colossal dynamics until climaxing into guitar solo bliss. "That song is about following your dreams, reaching for the sky," Moudry reveals. The breathtaking ballad "Home" exudes a centered poise with stately strings and glistening clean guitars. "Scott and I wrote that about finding peace within yourself after going through intense depression," Moudry explains.

The album has a crisp and punchy production aesthetic, highlighting the group's expansive dynamic range. "The biggest thing I loved about the producers is that they gave their opinion, but they never forced their hand on who we are. They just made our music come alive," Moudry says. Kirk Kelsey, best known for co-producing/engineering landmark albums for Creed and 3 Doors Down, stokes the album's burning potency with his richly dimensional mix engineering.

"It's been surreal," Moudry says, surveying the band's history. "We started out as a couple of high school buddies who grew up in a town of 2,600 people. I never dreamed we'd be in this position. We're so thankful to get a chance to spread our wings."